Aldar’s Hadeel residential project at Al Raha Beach ‘well under way’

Al Fara’a General Contracting is “well under way” with a project to build the latest phase of Aldar Properties’ Al Raha Beach project.

Hadeel will occupy a site next to Aldar’s existing Al Bandar project. It is a 57,000 square metre building on a 10,000 sq metre plot that will have 233 apartments and eight town houses.

The apartments all sold out on the day of the building’s sales launch in May last year and Aldar awarded the contract to Al Fara’a in April this year. The building is due to complete in the first quarter of 2017.

“The foundations are going in and the tower cranes have gone up,” said the company’s general manager, Colin Timmons. “We are well under way.”

He said that Al Fara’a had a good track record of delivery for Aldar Properties.

“We’ve built schools, shopping malls for them. Our business is well known to them and we have a good relationship. Having said that, the job was won in competition. Aldar knows our ability to deliver on time, on budget and to a high quality.”

Mr Timmons said that he expects the contracting market to remain tough in the next year but added that Al Fara’a has already secured about Dh1.5 billion of work for next year.

“It’s a broad mixture. We have two new projects up in Dubai – a 52-storey tower next to Wafi Mall for MKM Holding and we’re doing City Mall for Akar, which is next to Global Village. It’s a job that was partially built around eight years ago then works were stopped.”

In Abu Dhabi, it has a number of continuing military projects and it is finishing Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre, as well as Sila Hospital in the Western Region for Musanada, the public services company.

“We’re looking at furthering our healthcare experience and retaining that flexibility to meet the market. Whatever comes up, you have to be flexible and you have to have an open mind. If someone wants to build a steel plant, we’ve got to be able to react to that.”

He said that in terms of live opportunities, about 70 per cent of tenders coming through were from Dubai with the remainder in Abu Dhabi. However, he said that the market for contractors in Dubai was incredibly competitive.

“I would like to think with some of the bad news that has been reported by some contractors that they will become more sensible with margin levels, but the problem with the industry is that there always seems to be a contractor out there who is prepared to buy the job to keep busy.”